Month: January 2019

Mystery Writers of America’s Midwest Chapter is hosting their February meeting in St. Paul, Minnesota.  The meeting is from 1 to 3 PM on Saturday, February 9th at the St. Paul Public Library – Highland Park location.  Although this is geared towards mystery writers, it is open to anyone who is interested in learning more about MWA and its Midwest chapter.

February’s meeting will feature Mindy Mejia, who—in addition to having a successful writing career—is a Certified Public Accountant (CPA). Mindy will be discussing a broad range of tax questions geared specifically toward self-employed and freelance writers. We’ll start with distinguishing business income from hobby income, and then move on to considerations for choosing a tax treatment. Should you file as a sole proprietor? An S-corporation? We’ll look at adjustments and deductions and how to plan and properly report your expenses.

Mindy Mejia is an internationally acclaimed thriller writer whose work has been translated into over twenty languages. She’s the author of THE DRAGON KEEPER and EVERYTHING YOU WANT ME TO BE, which was a People’s Best New Books Pick and listed in The Wall Street Journal’s Best New Mysteries. Her latest novel, LEAVE NO TRACE, is on sale now. You can find out more at MindyMejia.com.

Have you heard about the concept of Inbox Zero?  As in achieving ZERO emails in your inbox?  It feels like an impossible challenge to me, but the idea of Inbox Infinity?  This is something I embody.

“Tombstone” is one of my all-time favorite movies.  Hard to believe it was released 25 years ago.

At the tail end of last year, the mystery community found out that Midnight Ink, a smaller press publishing some excellent mystery authors, was folding.  Forbes wrote this article about what an author can do if their publisher folds.  Interesting information.

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Reading: I finished a pair of books before the close of 2018 – Violet Ramis Stiel’s “Ghostbuster’s Daughter”, a memoir about Ms. Stiel and her dad, Harold Ramis.  Here’s my review from Goodreads:

I also read Brian Lutterman’s “Downfall.”  Lutterman is a Minnesota author (and an all-around fabulous guy) and I really enjoyed this mystery.

Writing Life: Stuff’s happening.  Slowly, but happening.

That’s it for this week – I hope that this finds you well and warm!

– Shelley

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What is Friday Fare? As a recap, on Fridays I post link love to the various bits of arcane shiz I discover on the Interwebs.  I liken it to a glimpse into my mind, but without the 80s song lyrics or mental cobwebs.